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The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America
The Straight State is the most expansive study of the federal regulation of homosexuality yet written. Unearthing startling new evidence from the National Archives, Margot Canaday shows how the state systematically came to penalize homosexuality, giving rise to a regime of second-class citizenship that sexual minorities still live under today.
Canaday looks at three key arenas of government control—immigration, the military, and welfare—and demonstrates how federal enforcement of sexual norms emerged with the rise of the modern bureaucratic state. She begins at the turn of the twentieth century when the state first stumbled upon evidence of sex and gender nonconformity, revealing how homosexuality was policed indirectly through the exclusion of sexually "degenerate" immigrants and other regulatory measures aimed at combating poverty, violence, and vice. Canaday argues that the state's gradual awareness of homosexuality intensified during the later New Deal and through the postwar period as policies were enacted that explicitly used homosexuality to define who could enter the country, serve in the military, and collect state benefits. Midcentury repression was not a sudden response to newly visible gay subcultures, Canaday demonstrates, but the culmination of a much longer and slower process of state-building during which the state came to know and to care about homosexuality across many decades.
Social, political, and legal history at their most compelling, The Straight State explores how regulation transformed the regulated: in drawing boundaries around national citizenship, the state helped to define the very meaning of homosexuality in America.
With narration by Laurel Lefkow, who reveals how the government enforced sex and gender conformity and relegated gays to second-class citizenship
Canaday looks at three key arenas of government control—immigration, the military, and welfare—and demonstrates how federal enforcement of sexual norms emerged with the rise of the modern bureaucratic state. She begins at the turn of the twentieth century when the state first stumbled upon evidence of sex and gender nonconformity, revealing how homosexuality was policed indirectly through the exclusion of sexually "degenerate" immigrants and other regulatory measures aimed at combating poverty, violence, and vice. Canaday argues that the state's gradual awareness of homosexuality intensified during the later New Deal and through the postwar period as policies were enacted that explicitly used homosexuality to define who could enter the country, serve in the military, and collect state benefits. Midcentury repression was not a sudden response to newly visible gay subcultures, Canaday demonstrates, but the culmination of a much longer and slower process of state-building during which the state came to know and to care about homosexuality across many decades.
Social, political, and legal history at their most compelling, The Straight State explores how regulation transformed the regulated: in drawing boundaries around national citizenship, the state helped to define the very meaning of homosexuality in America.
With narration by Laurel Lefkow, who reveals how the government enforced sex and gender conformity and relegated gays to second-class citizenship
11 pages, Audible Audio
First published January 1, 2009
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September 12, 2022
Numerous commentators at midcentury noted that there was “no crime against being homosexual.” This is true. There was no crime. But there was a policy against being homosexual, and it was federal in nature.
(p. 7)
The federal government did not define homosexuality in the abstract, but always as part of drawing the boundaries around national citizenship. (p. 255)
Brilliant. Margot Canaday’s research on how sexuality became a factor in citizenship, military service and welfare gains in the United States throughout the twentieth century is in-depth and insightful. It covers so many cases, events, interviews. Absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure. A truly excellent piece of scholarly work.
See also: The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.
⤑ research tag: in an effort to organise my shelves, I’m going to be labelling the books I’m using for study purposes as I tend to dip in and out of these.
The federal government did not define homosexuality in the abstract, but always as part of drawing the boundaries around national citizenship. (p. 255)
Brilliant. Margot Canaday’s research on how sexuality became a factor in citizenship, military service and welfare gains in the United States throughout the twentieth century is in-depth and insightful. It covers so many cases, events, interviews. Absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure. A truly excellent piece of scholarly work.
See also: The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government.
⤑ research tag: in an effort to organise my shelves, I’m going to be labelling the books I’m using for study purposes as I tend to dip in and out of these.
May 3, 2023
Professor Canaday takes a look at the way the government attempted to regulate the sexual behavior of its American citizens or prospective citizens in the 20th century. Canaday specifically focuses on three institutions to expose her findings; the immigration process, the military, and welfare. The book is split into two halves, the first is called, Nascent Policing, which is where the government steps with caution, not really sure of how to define what constitutes homosexual behavior. The second half of the book is entitled Explicit Regulation, where the government acts with more conviction in their denial of rights to those outside of their heterosexual orthodoxy.
I learned a lot from reading this text. During the New Deal, there was a federal government program called the Federal Transient Program (FTP), which was part of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). I had heard of FERA before, but not of the FTP. The FTP ran from only 1933-1935, and established camps and shelters for transient people during the Depression. These camps were much maligned, as it was thought that they might be a meeting place for older men to prey on younger men. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a much more celebrated program during this time because it provided work, required that a certain amount of money earned be sent home, and focused on hiring young men, but not transients.
The government really made up a lot of its discriminatory policies towards homosexuals on the fly, even being at odds with the scientific community at times because it wanted to equate homosexuality with perversion or psychopathy. The text was written in 2009, but mostly focuses on the time period between 1930-1970, so if you are looking for more recent government policy, this is only discussed in the book's brief concluding chapter.
I learned a lot from reading this text. During the New Deal, there was a federal government program called the Federal Transient Program (FTP), which was part of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). I had heard of FERA before, but not of the FTP. The FTP ran from only 1933-1935, and established camps and shelters for transient people during the Depression. These camps were much maligned, as it was thought that they might be a meeting place for older men to prey on younger men. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a much more celebrated program during this time because it provided work, required that a certain amount of money earned be sent home, and focused on hiring young men, but not transients.
The government really made up a lot of its discriminatory policies towards homosexuals on the fly, even being at odds with the scientific community at times because it wanted to equate homosexuality with perversion or psychopathy. The text was written in 2009, but mostly focuses on the time period between 1930-1970, so if you are looking for more recent government policy, this is only discussed in the book's brief concluding chapter.
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December 31, 2024“It was not until March 1918 that local draft and medical advisory boards were provided with the revised 1917 instructions barring the psychopathic character including the homosexual from the service” - praying we bring this back for the next draft 🙏🏻 I’d like to stay at home
February 11, 2021
Wow.
I read this book as part of the BookRiot 2021 Read Harder Challenge, to answer prompt 4-"Read an LGBT History Book."
The Straight State is something I may have read while getting my masters degree in applied politics-and I truly wish I had. This book is an incredibly detailed history without ever becoming so academic as to become incomprehensible. I enjoyed reading it the whole time, despite the anger, sadness, and even grief I felt as a gay woman reading about how homophobia is baked into the American state, but more than any other piece, the conclusion knocks it out of the park.
I won't quote the closing line, because I want whoever may be reading this review to read it for themselves, but please trust that it's perfect.
This book was released in 2009, and the author imagines in her conclusion a world with equal citizenship rights for LGBT people, one that did not exist for her at the time of writing. I first came out in 2011, and I remember the world she's talking about, remember navigating it as a gay child. So much has changed since then, and so much has changed since the 30s, 40s, and 50s upon which this book focuses.
I wish I could take the hand of every lesbian who was dishonorably discharged, every transient man who was denied help because he was gay, every person who was denied entry into the country because of their indeterminate gender and say: look. We have a way to go still, but look.
Things have changed. They can change even more. To borrow a phrase that is most commonly associated with the LGBT community and what we go through: It Gets Better.
I read this book as part of the BookRiot 2021 Read Harder Challenge, to answer prompt 4-"Read an LGBT History Book."
The Straight State is something I may have read while getting my masters degree in applied politics-and I truly wish I had. This book is an incredibly detailed history without ever becoming so academic as to become incomprehensible. I enjoyed reading it the whole time, despite the anger, sadness, and even grief I felt as a gay woman reading about how homophobia is baked into the American state, but more than any other piece, the conclusion knocks it out of the park.
I won't quote the closing line, because I want whoever may be reading this review to read it for themselves, but please trust that it's perfect.
This book was released in 2009, and the author imagines in her conclusion a world with equal citizenship rights for LGBT people, one that did not exist for her at the time of writing. I first came out in 2011, and I remember the world she's talking about, remember navigating it as a gay child. So much has changed since then, and so much has changed since the 30s, 40s, and 50s upon which this book focuses.
I wish I could take the hand of every lesbian who was dishonorably discharged, every transient man who was denied help because he was gay, every person who was denied entry into the country because of their indeterminate gender and say: look. We have a way to go still, but look.
Things have changed. They can change even more. To borrow a phrase that is most commonly associated with the LGBT community and what we go through: It Gets Better.
January 1, 2025
Margot Canaday’s The Straight State analyzes the “three engines of the 20th century [American] state,” the Bureau of Immigration, the military, and welfare agencies, and examines “how federal interest in homosexuality developed in tandem with the growth of the bureaucratic state” (2). Unlike the European state, which maintained anti-gay laws but rarely enforced them, the growth of the U.S. bureaucratic state, in its quest for power over all aspects of U.S. society, extended into the management of American sexuality and ultimately created the extreme harsh hetero/homosexual binary which character American society from the 1950s onwards. While the federal state only began explicitly targeting homosexuality in the post-WWII era, understanding of homosexuality and repressive methods against it were developed and deployed beforehand, yet implicitly and less forcefully (3). Canaday employs an analytical lens which seeks to see “state-building from the bottom up,” the growth, development, and operation of the state in its everyday bureaucratic practices (5).
The first state efforts to detect and manage homosexuality in the U.S. originated in the early 20th century in use of the “public charge clause” of U.S. immigration law to exclude or deport “perverse” immigrants (21-22). The public charge clause was easy to apply for a myriad of reasons: 1) it required no actual charge, merely the determination of a bureaucrat that an immigrant was likely to become a drain on state resources, and 2) did not have to target homosexuality explicitly, merely deviant behavior which could suggest a path to poverty or outside the perceived normalcy of American society, in cooperation with racial “degeneration” theory (24-33). The methods to “detect” perversity took several forms. First, biological pseudoscience found “perversity” in full body examinations, with stunted sexual development or non-normal genitalia and ambiguously-gendered individuals rejected for a supposed “tendency towards moral perversion” (33-39). Those with “perverse bodies,” although rejected, found sympathy with immigration officials, while those associated with “perverse practices,” such as “sodomy,” were disdained and targets for surveillance, etc. “Perverse” practices were associated with vagrancy and poverty, and thus provided an avenue for deportation (39-44). However, the public charge clause was ultimately limited because the lack of legal apparatus to prevent challenges alongside wealth and in-country family connections could aid in bypassing the restrictions (44-48).
In the WWI-era military, “military officials [were] concerned that U.S. soldiers serving in Europe would be contaminated by continental depravity,” while shifting blame for domestic perversity onto civilians (55-76). The military generally did not ferret out or seek to purge those who did not conform to sexual norms in private—court martials were limited to overt displays and particularly sexual violence among soldiers (77). Most reported incidents were attacks and rape upon effeminate or younger recruits by other soldiers, and it was these violent incidents which were repressed and punished (82-84).
During the New Deal, the Federal Transient Program for “unattached persons”/“hobos” was “perpetually shadowed by concerns about perversion among its clientele,” while the Civilian Conservation Corps avoided such charges because of its requirement that participants be connected to someone, usually family (92). Critics alleged that the FTP was state-sanctioned homosexuality, allowing men to make a living without attaching themselves to women or a family. This was exacerbated by public perceptions of and fears surrounding the “hobo” population, which was thought to have a higher rate of perversity, predators, and homosexuality than other populations (95-103). While there was rhetorical purity for FTP camp environments, FTP participant-produced papers as well as incidents involving exploitation of men by social workers seem to suggest that some of the charges against the FTP were substantiated (108-117). The CCC, in comparison, had an official acceptance of sexual hazing and practices, legitimized by the paramilitary nature of the organization in contrast to the FTP (117-125). The practices of the FTP and CCC, which ignored transient women and incentivized the creation of families, laid the basis for the family-based welfarism of the U.S. state vs. the sparse assistance given to non-family connected individuals (130-134).
The 1944 GI Bill was its own realm of “homosexual exclusion, built into the very foundation of the welfare state” (140). The redistributive nature of the GI Bill, built upon excluding the civilian population due to conservative opposition, was administered by the VA, whose explicitly “antihomosexual policy justified the agency’s dismissal of congressional intentions to distribute benefits more broadly,” and tarred veterans suspected of homosexual behavior with “blue discharges” that often followed and ruined veterans’ lives even after excluding them from benefits (142-163). While GI Bill built the foundations for the emergence of the gay rights movement over the next four decades, it ensured the crystallization of increasingly binary understanding of sexuality within federal legislation, “a closet within federal social policy” (163-173).
Until WWII, the federal government was largely indifferent to lesbianism or sexual “perversity” among women (175). However, efforts to purge homosexuals from the military in the post-WWII period disproportionately targeted women which made up only 1% of the force (175). The private lives of women servicemembers were policed particularly harshly due to the supposed “secret” nature of lesbians, and the general unsuredness of the government towards a definition of women’s homosexual behavior, i.e., lack of defined penetration and acts associated with heterosexual or gay men’s sexual behavior (177-190). To ferret out lesbians, the military employed anticommunist investigation methodology utilized by HUAC and other systems to investigate gay women’s networks, to some success (190-198). While women attempted to fight discharges, they also often cherished the opportunities to inform investigators about the nature of lesbianism in their testimony, which investigators (still unsure of what “lesbianism” was) listen to intently (198-205).
Finally, strict binaries of sexuality were enshrined into federal law with the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act, which explicitly excluded homosexuals on basis of psychiatric defect and “moral turpitude” (218-221). However, the vague nature of the application of the “psychopathic personality” and whether or not homosexuality could be categorized as psychopathic, as well as mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, led to the liberalization of law during the Carter administration and its dismantling through various legal battles with the Immigration and Naturalization Service throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
The first state efforts to detect and manage homosexuality in the U.S. originated in the early 20th century in use of the “public charge clause” of U.S. immigration law to exclude or deport “perverse” immigrants (21-22). The public charge clause was easy to apply for a myriad of reasons: 1) it required no actual charge, merely the determination of a bureaucrat that an immigrant was likely to become a drain on state resources, and 2) did not have to target homosexuality explicitly, merely deviant behavior which could suggest a path to poverty or outside the perceived normalcy of American society, in cooperation with racial “degeneration” theory (24-33). The methods to “detect” perversity took several forms. First, biological pseudoscience found “perversity” in full body examinations, with stunted sexual development or non-normal genitalia and ambiguously-gendered individuals rejected for a supposed “tendency towards moral perversion” (33-39). Those with “perverse bodies,” although rejected, found sympathy with immigration officials, while those associated with “perverse practices,” such as “sodomy,” were disdained and targets for surveillance, etc. “Perverse” practices were associated with vagrancy and poverty, and thus provided an avenue for deportation (39-44). However, the public charge clause was ultimately limited because the lack of legal apparatus to prevent challenges alongside wealth and in-country family connections could aid in bypassing the restrictions (44-48).
In the WWI-era military, “military officials [were] concerned that U.S. soldiers serving in Europe would be contaminated by continental depravity,” while shifting blame for domestic perversity onto civilians (55-76). The military generally did not ferret out or seek to purge those who did not conform to sexual norms in private—court martials were limited to overt displays and particularly sexual violence among soldiers (77). Most reported incidents were attacks and rape upon effeminate or younger recruits by other soldiers, and it was these violent incidents which were repressed and punished (82-84).
During the New Deal, the Federal Transient Program for “unattached persons”/“hobos” was “perpetually shadowed by concerns about perversion among its clientele,” while the Civilian Conservation Corps avoided such charges because of its requirement that participants be connected to someone, usually family (92). Critics alleged that the FTP was state-sanctioned homosexuality, allowing men to make a living without attaching themselves to women or a family. This was exacerbated by public perceptions of and fears surrounding the “hobo” population, which was thought to have a higher rate of perversity, predators, and homosexuality than other populations (95-103). While there was rhetorical purity for FTP camp environments, FTP participant-produced papers as well as incidents involving exploitation of men by social workers seem to suggest that some of the charges against the FTP were substantiated (108-117). The CCC, in comparison, had an official acceptance of sexual hazing and practices, legitimized by the paramilitary nature of the organization in contrast to the FTP (117-125). The practices of the FTP and CCC, which ignored transient women and incentivized the creation of families, laid the basis for the family-based welfarism of the U.S. state vs. the sparse assistance given to non-family connected individuals (130-134).
The 1944 GI Bill was its own realm of “homosexual exclusion, built into the very foundation of the welfare state” (140). The redistributive nature of the GI Bill, built upon excluding the civilian population due to conservative opposition, was administered by the VA, whose explicitly “antihomosexual policy justified the agency’s dismissal of congressional intentions to distribute benefits more broadly,” and tarred veterans suspected of homosexual behavior with “blue discharges” that often followed and ruined veterans’ lives even after excluding them from benefits (142-163). While GI Bill built the foundations for the emergence of the gay rights movement over the next four decades, it ensured the crystallization of increasingly binary understanding of sexuality within federal legislation, “a closet within federal social policy” (163-173).
Until WWII, the federal government was largely indifferent to lesbianism or sexual “perversity” among women (175). However, efforts to purge homosexuals from the military in the post-WWII period disproportionately targeted women which made up only 1% of the force (175). The private lives of women servicemembers were policed particularly harshly due to the supposed “secret” nature of lesbians, and the general unsuredness of the government towards a definition of women’s homosexual behavior, i.e., lack of defined penetration and acts associated with heterosexual or gay men’s sexual behavior (177-190). To ferret out lesbians, the military employed anticommunist investigation methodology utilized by HUAC and other systems to investigate gay women’s networks, to some success (190-198). While women attempted to fight discharges, they also often cherished the opportunities to inform investigators about the nature of lesbianism in their testimony, which investigators (still unsure of what “lesbianism” was) listen to intently (198-205).
Finally, strict binaries of sexuality were enshrined into federal law with the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act, which explicitly excluded homosexuals on basis of psychiatric defect and “moral turpitude” (218-221). However, the vague nature of the application of the “psychopathic personality” and whether or not homosexuality could be categorized as psychopathic, as well as mounting scientific evidence to the contrary, led to the liberalization of law during the Carter administration and its dismantling through various legal battles with the Immigration and Naturalization Service throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
March 16, 2019
This book is an incredible history of homosexuality in America from the late-nineteenth century into the twentieth century and is one of the most well-written and accessible scholarly texts I’ve ever read. Canaday deserves every award she got and then some.
May 28, 2013
This is a cleverly written book about the history of sexuality in America. I really enjoyed the author's tone and the was she handled many of the difficult issues that are still present today.
April 19, 2019
Fabulous book, so smart and engaging. A breakthrough study of sexuality and the federal government's efforts to articulate the problem and then police it.
November 14, 2025
3.5
the book was not what i expected it would be, but it was definitely worth the read.
the research focuses on US state regulation on homosexuality and attempts at enforcement in three main domains: military, immigration and welfare. this is immediately made clear in the introduction. i was expecting the welfare sections to focus more on enforcement on US civilians, but it was actually predominantly focused on veteran benefits. it was still very interesting, especially the second half, and i see now how important these domains were in the development of (or attempts at) a state policy on homosexuality. i specifically recommend chapter 5 on lesbianism and female homosexuality in the military.
i appreciated the density of information, even though it impeded readability at times. this is a different take on the regulation of homosexuality than what one would assume, fully backed by a careful overview of cases and controversies. the idea that the category of homosexual was not at all a given in US state policy challenges many assumptions about the history of homosexuality and its criminalization in the modern era. i myself am very interested in state-focused research and i thought this did a great job at balancing an analysis of state policy with the realities of its enforcement.
there was not much of a focus on the trans and gender-nonconformity dimensions. i assume that is because state regulations did not explicitly address gender non-conformity separately from homosexuality for a very long time, which is made clear in the first chapter, but i would assume this would also create confusion and controversy during enforcement later on. i think the book would've benefitted from, at the very least, a disclaimer justifying the omission.
the book was not what i expected it would be, but it was definitely worth the read.
the research focuses on US state regulation on homosexuality and attempts at enforcement in three main domains: military, immigration and welfare. this is immediately made clear in the introduction. i was expecting the welfare sections to focus more on enforcement on US civilians, but it was actually predominantly focused on veteran benefits. it was still very interesting, especially the second half, and i see now how important these domains were in the development of (or attempts at) a state policy on homosexuality. i specifically recommend chapter 5 on lesbianism and female homosexuality in the military.
i appreciated the density of information, even though it impeded readability at times. this is a different take on the regulation of homosexuality than what one would assume, fully backed by a careful overview of cases and controversies. the idea that the category of homosexual was not at all a given in US state policy challenges many assumptions about the history of homosexuality and its criminalization in the modern era. i myself am very interested in state-focused research and i thought this did a great job at balancing an analysis of state policy with the realities of its enforcement.
there was not much of a focus on the trans and gender-nonconformity dimensions. i assume that is because state regulations did not explicitly address gender non-conformity separately from homosexuality for a very long time, which is made clear in the first chapter, but i would assume this would also create confusion and controversy during enforcement later on. i think the book would've benefitted from, at the very least, a disclaimer justifying the omission.
April 9, 2024
This is literally the first book I've read in three months and the only reason that happened is because this is for a class. It was good though.
See you in another three months.
See you in another three months.
May 23, 2024
Ooooo I hope no bisexual women see that I’ve read this👀 ooooo
January 28, 2024
Also one of the best history books I’ve read and want to reread
December 31, 2016
Don't pick this up unless you have a highlighter in hand and a lot of time. Be warned.
January 6, 2018
This book!!!
September 16, 2019
👮🏼♀️👮🏼♂️👨❤️💋👨👩❤️💋👩🏗🇺🇸🗂🔐
January 23, 2024
Bruh, I love academia. Essentially, this is the history to describe state memories of grief (said in a non-academic way, more my personal articulation of stakes) along three main dimensions 1) immigration, 2) welfare and 3) military. So interesting and I guess even though there are facts, statistics, policies, developments in medicine/psychology/language of queerness, etc. the beauty of political science is that we don’t exactly know their interactions and the real scope of what any of this means. At the end of the day, Canaday makes a thorough, convincing argument that is far from finished because there will always be archives, exceptions, and the question of interpretation.
December 12, 2017
In "The Straight State," historian Margot Canaday examines efforts by the U.S. government to control homosexuality in the areas: immigration, the military, and welfare, from approximately WWI era to the 1960s. You can see the connection between past efforts and what some of today's politicians would like to enforce. It was so difficult to read of lives ruined over this obsession by "the moral right."
May 28, 2019
The federal control on the homosexuality had an arduous journey controlling the behavior within the trifecta of immigration-welfare-military. The tendencies in military, behavior in both welfare and military had been controlling factors to deny the federal benefits while at the same time heterosexual behavior had been rewarded.
March 5, 2025
This freaking country I swear to god-
We're not gonna talk about all the hope in the conclusion. (This book was written in 2009.) We're not. I'm banging my head against the wall because now I can see how everything in the past century has led up to the present moment (more or less). GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
We're not gonna talk about all the hope in the conclusion. (This book was written in 2009.) We're not. I'm banging my head against the wall because now I can see how everything in the past century has led up to the present moment (more or less). GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
March 10, 2020
Really informative look at the way that federal policy actually shaped the way we see identity today. The author shows how the federal government turned homosexuality into a definitive identity instead of a behavior. I especially appreciated the comparisons over time.
July 12, 2017
Another useful entry in the category of books that show distinctions people take for granted as "natural" -- in this case, sexuality -- are in fact social/political/legal constructions.
November 18, 2020
So good! So much never known before history and very well told.
February 7, 2022
super well-researched and informative book about how the US is literally founded on homophobia, specifically in immigration, military, and welfare. depressing but important knowledge
January 28, 2025
super thorough super insightful super detailed yayyy 🏳️🌈
November 28, 2025
2nd ever history book to get 5 stars from me !!
March 21, 2017
I get that it's part of the argument, but there are hardly any human beings with agency in this book. Bleh.
November 1, 2011
In The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America Margot Canaday elegantly demonstrates the ways in which an expanding federal bureaucracy both shaped and reacted to the emergence of a homosexual-heterosexual binary. The emergence of this binary came to function as an important method of inclusion and exclusion from the benefits of citizenship. By creating the category of the homosexual, government policies also created the closet. Canaday examines both what the government laid out as official policy and how bureaucrats at all levels enacted or enforced those policies. She is more concerned with what the state actually did than with what it purported to do. At the core of the state’s evolving understanding of homosexuality is the shift toward homosexual as a status rather homosexual acts. The military and other agencies initially punished acts but, over the course of the 20th century, shifted to policing the homosexual person regardless of their behavior. The book focuses specifically on the Bureau of Immigration, military, and the various federal agencies that administered welfare benefits between roughly the turn of the last century through the Cold War. At the end of the book, she turns to a discussion of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and contemporary debates about same-sex marriage.
This book strikes me as more of an American Studies text than, for example, Mae Ngai’s book. Although The Straight State is only barely more interdisciplinary on the level of methods than Impossible Subjects, Canaday engages with gender issues in a deeper way than many historians. The book’s introduction highlights how little attention historians have given to issues of gender, sexuality, and the emerging bureaucratic state. She also does more with her source material, primarily archival documents and court proceedings, than the average historian. By combining the quantitative and qualitative readings of court cases, Canaday explores ambiguity and ambivalence on the part of the state. Her presentation of these cases and memos reveals not just what happened, but ventures into the symbolic and the level of meaning. This is especially the case with her reading of women’s confessions to homosexual acts (see p. 203-205). A brief discussion of popular culture’s response to the emerging homosexual identity or government policies could have added a bit of nuance to her work. Similarly, the illustrations that she does include could have been dealt with in greater detail. That said, the book is not weaker for these choices.
I appreciated that Canaday presents an academically written, thoroughly researched argument, in a manner similar to Mae Ngai, while nevertheless maintaining a clear, passionate political stance. Canaday herself speaks directly to the reader in the conclusion, offering her thoughts on contemporary gay-rights strategies on the local, state, and federal level. Throughout the book her enthusiasm and belief in the subject is clear. By ending the book with a statement of her politics, rather than including them in the introduction as a kind of “disclaimer” in the name of transparency, Canaday manages to leave the reader with a way forward based on the history that she presented. Although this conclusion certainly is not a rallying cry in the same way as Schmidt-Camacho’s afterward in Migrant Imaginaries, Canaday ties the past to the present, states clearly the injustice of contemporary policy, and advocates for action.
This book strikes me as more of an American Studies text than, for example, Mae Ngai’s book. Although The Straight State is only barely more interdisciplinary on the level of methods than Impossible Subjects, Canaday engages with gender issues in a deeper way than many historians. The book’s introduction highlights how little attention historians have given to issues of gender, sexuality, and the emerging bureaucratic state. She also does more with her source material, primarily archival documents and court proceedings, than the average historian. By combining the quantitative and qualitative readings of court cases, Canaday explores ambiguity and ambivalence on the part of the state. Her presentation of these cases and memos reveals not just what happened, but ventures into the symbolic and the level of meaning. This is especially the case with her reading of women’s confessions to homosexual acts (see p. 203-205). A brief discussion of popular culture’s response to the emerging homosexual identity or government policies could have added a bit of nuance to her work. Similarly, the illustrations that she does include could have been dealt with in greater detail. That said, the book is not weaker for these choices.
I appreciated that Canaday presents an academically written, thoroughly researched argument, in a manner similar to Mae Ngai, while nevertheless maintaining a clear, passionate political stance. Canaday herself speaks directly to the reader in the conclusion, offering her thoughts on contemporary gay-rights strategies on the local, state, and federal level. Throughout the book her enthusiasm and belief in the subject is clear. By ending the book with a statement of her politics, rather than including them in the introduction as a kind of “disclaimer” in the name of transparency, Canaday manages to leave the reader with a way forward based on the history that she presented. Although this conclusion certainly is not a rallying cry in the same way as Schmidt-Camacho’s afterward in Migrant Imaginaries, Canaday ties the past to the present, states clearly the injustice of contemporary policy, and advocates for action.
September 22, 2025
listened not read
should've been much more interesting than it was
should've been much more interesting than it was
February 26, 2017
An expert study of the federal regulation of homosexuality through immigration, military, and welfare policy. Charting the various strategies the state used to regulate citizenship from the turn of the century to midcentury, Canaday convincingly argues that the state "did not merely implicate but also *constituted* homosexuality in the construction of a stratified citizenry" (4). Thus, this study is not "a history of federal interest in what homosexuality is at any given moment, but rather a history of federal interest [and influence] in *what becomes* homosexuality by midcentury" (11). Through critical perspectives and extensive sources—including new evidence from the National Archives—we come to see homosexuality as a simplification of complex social facts into a legible category (214; see also Scott's 1998 book, Seeing Like a State).
December 31, 2015
Canaday's main argument here is that the development of the massive bureaucracy that we now know as the U.S. nation-state developed at the same time the idea of "the homosexual" developed and that these entities were mutually reinforcing. In other words, as the idea of homosexuality came to be seen as a fixed identity, the state developed more and more explicit ways of policing it. In turn, this bureaucratic/legal regulation of sexuality cemented the idea of the homo/hetero binary, an idea we're still contending with today. Canaday provides evidence for this argument by closely examining the exclusion of gay people (and those assumed to be gay) within three institutions of the state: immigration, the military, and welfare.
What I liked most about her book was that it wasn't about gay marriage. She focuses on how queer people were made into second class citizens through other types of exclusion that I think we often forget about in the discussion of queer civil rights. While her focus is on the pre- and post-WWII era (she is a historian after all), I would have liked to see a little more of a thread to today. How are queer people (or queerness) treated/policed/excluded in these bureaucracies today?
What I liked most about her book was that it wasn't about gay marriage. She focuses on how queer people were made into second class citizens through other types of exclusion that I think we often forget about in the discussion of queer civil rights. While her focus is on the pre- and post-WWII era (she is a historian after all), I would have liked to see a little more of a thread to today. How are queer people (or queerness) treated/policed/excluded in these bureaucracies today?
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